#5 form → shape

Quick Summary

The root form, which means ‘shape,’ gives us a number of words that are used every day, including reform, information, deformed, and form. To ‘form," for instance, is simply ’to shape,’ whereas to reform is merely to ‘shape again.’ To keep you in verbal “shape,” let’s take a look at the way some other words are formed!

Ingredient Memlet: formulate

To formulate something, such as a plan or action, is to “make it have a shape” by carefully planning or working it out. Note that a formula in mathematics is an equation which gives a pattern or “small form or shape” to a rule or fact, which mathematicians formulate.

Keep in Word Shape Using Good Verbal Form

When we receive information, it is simply a description of something which gives a ‘shape’ to a given topic. An informant therefore gives a ‘shape’ to some fact, whereas if you are well informed you are in good ‘shape’ when it comes to facts.

If something is deformed it is out of ‘shape’ in some way. Something malformed is ‘badly shaped.’

When we conform to another’s viewpoint, we give ourselves thoroughly to the ‘shape’ of someone else’s opinion or ideas. A nonconformist, on the other hand, does not give ‘shape’ to any widespread idea or opinion, but bucks current trends of thought. Of course, if you have to wear a uniform, everyone has but ‘one shape’!

There are many different forms, or ‘shapes,’ in which this word is used, including the suffix ‘-form.’ For example, anything cruciform is ‘shaped’ like a cross, whereas writing that is cuneiform is ‘wedgelike in shape.’

Let’s talk science. When Isaac Newton gave the formula for gravitational force he was giving a scientific ‘shape’ to gravity. A formula in general is a mathematical equation which gives ‘shape’ to known rules or facts. But as we now know, Newton’s formula was misinformed or somewhat ‘badly shaped.’ It took the genius of Einstein to correctly transform or ‘shape’ Newton’s work ‘across’ into more precise scientific territory.

There, that is plenty of information on form! I shall conform to preformed rules and formulate no more!